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(11) | EP 0 774 711 A3 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | A method and apparatus for sorting elements |
| (57) The present invention pertains to a method for sorting. The method comprises the
steps of forming a decision tree 10 comprised of at least a first level 12 having
at least a first entry 14 with either a first result 16 or a second result 18 corresponding
to values as they fill a queue 20. Then, there is the step of reading the result in
the first entry 14 of the first level 12 of the decision tree 10. Next, there is the
step of choosing the value in the first entry 14 of the first level 12 from the queue
20 corresponding to the result in the first entry 14. The present invention comprises
a priority queue. The priority queue comprises an array 42 in which elements 22 are
stored. Also, the priority queue comprises a controller 40 which stores the elements
22 in the array 42 with no memory reads and a constant number of memory writes so
a smallest element in the array 42 can be identified. |